


Forever

by spoilersweetie



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 08:12:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/809319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoilersweetie/pseuds/spoilersweetie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My episode fix-it. Spoilers for 'The Name of the Doctor.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever

**Author's Note:**

> It's been nearly 24 hours and I am still crying tears and tears over the end of my beautiful OTP. This is how I'm trying to cope.

He doesn’t sleep often. Sleep is something his race has little need for, their genetic make-up being so advanced the need to rest one’s body and mind in order to continue to work was redundant. Sleep is something the Gallifreyans could do to relax, if they so choose, and every few years one might find themselves needing to rest their eyes for perhaps just a few hours, but tonight, so emotionally wrung out, physically and mentally exhausted, the Doctor retreats to his bedroom aboard the Tardis.

He feels a twang of pain in his chest when he enters the room and closes his eyes; the last times he’d used it had been for purposes far from sleep, and involving the reason his emotions were presently so in shreds. Nudging the door behind him closed with his foot, the Doctor lets his shoulders slump and begins tiredly unwinding his bowtie, shrugging his coat to the floor and kicking off his shoes, eyes cast down as he walks on weary legs towards the large bed in the middle.

“Hello sweetie.”

The words are like ice and fire in his veins, and he snaps his head up, freezing, eyes bulging as he takes in the woman lounging on his bed.

His _wife._

He opens his mouth but cannot speak.

River’s lips curl upwards a little, although her eyes are wide and anxious. She shrugs a shoulder. “Surprise?”

He sweeps his gaze quickly over her – silver-cream dress that falls across her body like a whisper, dark blonde curls as neat and perfect as ever round a face that is watching him carefully… this is the same River he had just parted with. Forever…?

His heart is pounding and blood is rushing in his ears. He can manage only one word. “How…?”

With grace she had always possessed, River sits up on his bed, smile fading from her lips, bottom one caught between her teeth.

“It seems my psychic link with Clara disappeared when she jumped into your time stream… and transferred to the Tardis.” She reaches out to touch the wall behind the headboard of the bed, looking at it contemplatively. “She and I have always been connected. It seems she’s… pulled me here. Out of the library.”

The Doctor’s mouth is open as he stares, dumbstruck at her. “You’re alive?” He whispers the words.

Sadly, she shakes her head. “Not alive, my love. I’ve been long gone. But… I’m here. Like this.”

“For…” Hardly daring to believe, he takes a step closer to her. “Forever?”

“For… as long as she will have me, I suppose.”

He stumbles towards her then, kneeling on the bed with her, arms outstretched as he takes her face in his hands. “Forever,” he breathes, voice catching as his eyes fill with tears of hope. “She will want you here forever – my River,” thumb stroking her cheek, he searches her eyes. “Can it really be true?”

Lifting a hand she presses it over his, nodding. “I think so,” she whispers, taking a breath and licking her lips, eyes flickering from his. “And you?” She asks, voice unnaturally quiet and vulnerable.

“Me?”

He watches her take another breath, and stare at his collar as she asks quickly and quietly and so full of fear, “Do you want me here? Forever?”

He cannot answer for a moment, which causes River to start to pull away, eyes cast down and gleaming with tears – but the Doctor holds tight to her, hands on her face as he moves in closer.

“River- _River_ ,” he says, caressing her cheek with his thumb until she looks at him with open, vulnerable eyes. “I cannot think of anything I could want more in the universe.”

The tears in her eyes well and spill over, slipping down her cheeks and onto his thumbs, which he uses to brush them away, one hand sliding back and burying in her hair, winding the soft curls round his fingers as his eyes rove over her beautiful face.

“Than my wife here with me forever.”

“Just here,” she says, sniffing. “I don’t think I could leave the Tardis.”

He nods and shakes his head. “I don’t care – here – you here, with me always – you and her – _River_ …”

A smile comes to her lips through her tears, and she edges closer to him, one hand still covering his, the other coming up to settle shakily against his neck. “Really?”

He hates that she could ever doubt that – that she could think for a moment that her being here with him forever is something he would _not_ want. He knows it is his own fault that she feels this way; she never knew what she meant to him, how _much_ she meant to him. Because he knew her inevitable end he tried not to ever let himself _feel_ so deeply for her, because – oh, he is a selfish old man who has seen and felt enough pain in his life time to want desperately to protect himself from it if he could. But it hadn’t worked – it had never worked with River – no matter how much he denied how deeply he felt for her it had never lessened the pain of losing her – of her being gone all those years.

But she is with him now and he has nothing to fear.

Another tear spills onto his thumb and he vows to spend all of eternity making up for every second of pain he has caused her.

He leans down and kisses her, a kiss just like the one they had shared in the broken down Tardis, except this one holds joy instead of anguish. When he pulls back he leans her forehead against hers, and he says the words he has never been able to.

“I love you, River Song.”


End file.
